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This Is Wrong on So Many Levels!

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"This is wrong on more levels than I can count. And they're both really basic levels, too."
— Fighter, 8-Bit Theater

Dialog meant to describe a situation that is, well, wrong in various ways all at once. There is no hard and fast minimum of exactly how many "levels" it needs to be wrong. It just needs to be hard to describe just how wrong the situation is.

Can be used in both comedy and drama. In comedy, if anyone ever asks for the speaker to elaborate, they'll do an Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking progression, ending with "... and that pink ball gag is just tacky."

Also doesn't need to be the word "wrong", or "levels", as long as the format sticks. People of a geeky persuasion can also allude to the concept as being "fractally wrong": no matter the level you look at it, it's always wrong — resembling a Mandelbrot curve, which has similar features at every scale.note 

A specific variant phrase is "Sick and Wrong", which usually involves something that would require Brain Bleach. Occasionally paired with Head-Tiltingly Kinky.

And That's Terrible.

In-Universe Examples Only:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime and Manga 
  • Happens at the start of the Assassination Classroom anime.
    Korosensei: How do you do? I'm the one that blasted your moon. I plan to do the same to Earth next year. Now I'm your teacher. Nice to meet you.
    Students, in perfect unison: There are at least six things wrong with this picture!
    Nagisa, narrating: The feeling was unanimous.
  • Rein rather memorably utters this exact phrase in the English dub of Best Student Council.
  • In Koe de Oshigoto!, several characters point out to Yayoi that making her underage sister Kanna work as an eroge seiyuu is sick and wrong, to which she responds there is no law against it.
  • Used at least twice in Negima! Magister Negi Magi. Once by Chamo, in a bath scene with naked, adult form Evangeline sucking blood from the protesting, 10 year-old Negi's arm. Once by Sayo after witnessing Kazumi's reaction to finding out what winding feels like to Chachamaru.

    Audio Plays 

    Comic Books 
  • Batman and Robin (2009): Damian Wayne's opinion of schizophrenic mutilation enthusiast and completely batshit Professor Pyg:
    "You just redefined wrong."
  • Southpaw expresses this feeling when she and She-Hulk learn that they're under constant surveillance by The Watcher.
  • In Sin City, Nancy reveals to Hartigan that she fell in love with him because he rescued her, and makes a pass at him. He rejects her, because he first met her when she was still a child.
    Hartigan: God! There's wrong, and there's wrong, and then there's this!
  • Supergirl:
    • Jason Blood probably sums the situation up best when the demon Etrigan breaks off a brawl with Supergirl to drop to his knees and ask for her hand in marriage.
      Etrigan: Marry me. Do not say maybe./Take me as your demon lover; bear my demon baby. [kisses her hand]
      Jason Blood: This is wrong on so many levels, I don't even know where to start.
    • In Many Happy Returns, Kara (the Silver Age Supergirl) tries to push Earth out of its orbit. Her friend Linda's reaction:
      Linda: What you're doing is wrong on so many levels, it...
  • The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye:
    • In Liars, A to D Part 3: The Chaos of Warm Things, first we get an assessment about a Transformer's fatal injuries that go on to Squick the crew.
      Trailbreaker: A brain module sitting outside a body without a head wound. Now I'm no doctor, but that strikes me as intensely wrong.
      Rewind: Woah. Two questions. One: Are we saying he vomited up his own brain? And two: can I please go home now?
    • Afterwards, we get this little exchange that, even with context, can't help but be absurdly creepy.note  It is, if anything, More Disturbing in Context.
      Chromedome: Ratchet, could you put his brain back in his head? With corpses, I prefer to go through the eye sockets.
      Drift: I cannot begin to tell you what's wrong with that sentence.
  • West Coast Avengers (2018): Clint has this to say when America Chavez brings the team to the Shrimp Dimension:
    "This is disturbing on so many levels."

    Fan Works 
  • Bring Me All Your Elderly!:
  • This is what Odd thinks about the Dix-Neuf joke in the first Omake of Code: Half Demon. You have to pronounce dix-neuf: dez-nutz to get the joke.
  • Escape from the Moon: In the sequel The Mare From the Moon, when Spike mentions that all winged species can walk on clouds, Spliced's reaction is that "That is impossible on so many levels that I cannot even begin to describe how impossible that is." She's quickly proven wrong when Rainbow Dash pushes a cloud into the room and sits on it. Then again when Starlight levitates Spliced herself onto the cloud, which she finds is quite solid to her.
  • In Fail Better, Lucia comments with this line when she sees her all-time best friend Ellen flirting with her step-descendant, Lee (who is one generation below even Ellen's apparent age). She wasn't remembering most of her life at the time, but Lucia certainly was...
  • This is what Weiss and Yang think of them being shipped together in Weiss Reacts.

    Films — Animated 
  • Bolt:
    Bolt: If I stare at the lock really hard, it'll burst into flames and melt.
    Mittens: (stares at him) Now I'm concerned on a number of levels.
  • The Lion King 1 ½: When Timon propositions marriage to Shenzi as part of his diversion, the latter states that the former's implication of Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action "violates so many laws of nature".
  • Teacher's Pet:
    Ivan Krank: Oh, haven't you heard, my good man? Nature is dead! Science is king!
    Mr. Jolly: Oh, that is just wrong on so many levels.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Galaxy Quest.
    Guy: [watching Laliari sprout tentacles as she makes out with Fred on the floor] Ohhhh, that's not right!
  • Jason X: In response to being sucked into space:note 
    Janessa: Oh, this sucks on so many levels!
  • Kiss Kiss Bang Bang:
    Harry: This is every shade of wrong.
  • Must Love Dogs, after the heroine realises she answered her own father's personal ad:
    Sarah: This is disturbing on many levels.

    Live-Action TV 
  • In the Andromeda episode "Pride Before the Fall":
    Beka Valentine: If you do this and you kill me...
    Seamus Harper: We will always think fondly of you.
    Beka Valentine: This is so humiliating on so many levels.
  • Variation in Angel:
    Lilah: Mind if I join you?
    Wesley: On many levels and with great intensity.
  • Arrested Development, of course:
    Michael: [played by Jason Bateman, to Nellie, a prostitute he believes to be his sister, played by Justine Bateman, Jason's real-life sister!] Marry me!... That's wrong on so many levels.
  • Castle (2009): Castle says this after Alexis tells him that her Egg Sitting partner has 'killed' the egg to get back at her.
  • In the second episode of Dead Like Me, George is impaled with a clip on a stick, due to being too close to one of her 'customers' dying (being a Reaper, she got better). Later that night, she has a coughing fit... and spits up the clip. We pretty much agree with her when she says "Oh that's not right, that's not right!".
  • In the Dollhouse episode "Omega":
    Caroline/Wendy: The wrongness of this is so large.
  • Grey's Anatomy:
    • In the episode "Owner of a Lonely Heart":
      Dr. George O'Malley: Oh, that was wrong on so many levels.
    • In the episode "A Hard Day's Night":
      Dr. Meredith Grey: [grabs her bra from him] Humiliating, on so many levels. You have to go.
  • In the I Love Money episode "Only the Weak Survive":
    Nibblz: [after losing to Mr. Boston on "The Bed Battle"] This sucks on so many levels. Not only did I lose, I lost to Mr. Boston. Do you know how bad that is going to look for me back in Brooklyn?
  • Used as a pun by the UK Alibi channel's continuity announcer for the Murdoch Mysteries episode "Murdoch in Ladies Wear": "A department store manager found dead in a lift. Wrong on many levels."
  • In Mystery Science Theater 3000, this is practically one of Joel's catchphrases.
    Joel: Oh, come on, this is so offensive on so many levels...
  • In Off Centre, some people are changing at a gym. While they are naked, some guys get into a fight, dragging the main characters into it. One of them says the phrase.
  • In Project Runway, judge Michael Kors once told a designer who offered a truly awful "1970s-inspired" outfit: "Those plaid pants would be against every fashion law of nature in any decade."
  • In Rome, Octavia says this when she and Jocasta see that Atia is having the slave Duro, who tried to poison Atia on Servillia's orders, tortured because the testimony of a slave is only valid under torture. Atia doesn't plan on taking Servillia to court, she plans on killing her, and the confession can be used to claim it was self-defense if she's caught.
  • A Saturday Night Live sketch from the mid-late 80s featured a guy making a smartass comment about an absent acquaintance, and the woman to whom he was talking went into a complex musical number detailing the levels on which the joke offended her.
  • Scrubs had Elliot describing something Jordan said as "disturbing in, like, eight different ways." The new Main Character Lucy also recently had so much to do, that she "had to do my dad phone call, while having sex with my boyfriend. So many things wrong with that, not the least of which is that it was the most turned on I've ever been".
  • In the Stargate SG-1 episode "Paradise Lost":
    [Maybourne tosses an explosive in the lake to 'catch' some fish]
    Colonel Jack O'Neill: That is just wrong on so many levels.
  • The West Wing: In the pilot, after Sam recounts the day's bad events and, among other things, admits to sleeping with a prostitute and that he's trying to impress his boss's daughter... to his boss's daughter:
    Sam Seaborn: Well, this is bad on so many levels.
  • In Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Wayne Brady says this at the end of one game that... well, see for yourself.
  • In Wings, when Joe learns that Roy is ordering a mail-order bride: "This is wrong on so many levels, it's hard to describe without charts."
  • In The X-Files, after Mulder tries giving scientific explanations on a pseudo-vampire's death, the doctor who is checking on the corpse replies "You are really upsetting me. On several levels".

    Music 
  • Mitch Benn:
    Well I guess you must put out a track to
    Cash in on winning The X Factor
    Do you have to murder Hallelujah?
    [...]
    It's several different kinds of wrong
    Stick to Mariah Carey songs
    And stay the hell away from Hallelujah

    Newspaper Comics 
  • Frank and Ernest shows the title characters at "F & E Carpentry Supplies MFG". Next to Ernest is a box of levels. Ernest is looking at one and remarking, "All of these are off by several degrees." Frank responds, "How could we be wrong on so many levels?!"
  • In Pearls Before Swine, this is how Paris Goat describes Rat's idea to drive a beer truck—which is just like an ice-cream truck, but with beer, and it's for kids. It doesn't help that Pig gets excited for "beer-sicles".
  • In Zits, when Jeremy confesses to his mother about buying an essay with her credit card:
    Jeremy's Mother: YOU BOUGHT HOMEWORK ONLINE WITH MY CREDIT CARD? Jeremy, that is wrong on SO many levels! It's cheating! It's stealing! And it's STUPID!

    Radio 
  • In Keep Calman Carry On, Susan Calman explains why her wife can sit in silence while she needs a TV or radio on in every room of the house.
    Susan: Of course, the reality is that, when she sits in silence, she's just enjoying her own company. She doesn't need to have her head filled with white noise, because she was brought up in a family that talked about their emotions and feelings, meaning that she, as an adult, feels comfortable and happy with herself. I know, it's wrong on every level.
  • The Now Show Series 63 Episode 5, reporting on a fight breaking out in the audience of Hamilton, in the style of Hamilton:
    His efforts at terror could even rival the Devil,
    Shoving gobfuls of Revels, you know I watched him eat several,
    In the stalls, in the circle, in the boxes as well,
    What he's done here is evil on so many levels.

    Stand-Up Comedy 
  • Discussed and Lampshaded by Hannibal Burress:
    "Very upsetting on so many levels; really not that many levels. People overuse that — 'it was messed up on so many levels.' Please name every level. 'Well metaphysical, level three, eye level, sea level...' Shut up man, fuck your struggles, stop being dramatic."
  • One of Tim Vine's favourite jokes:
    "Crime in multi-storey car parks — that is wrong on so many different levels."

    Tabletop Games 
  • In the Star Wars Customizable Card Game, there's a card showing Luke getting smooched by Leia. The card's name is "This Is Just Wrong". A second kiss in the same vein is "This Is Still Wrong". Conversely, cards involving Leia kissing Han are "This Is More Like It", "This Is Even Better", and "This Is Absolutely Right".

    Video Games 
  • Fallout: New Vegas: Benny, who tried to have you murdered, has this as a response if you seduce him with Black Widow option, as a female character:
    "All right, honey baby, this is all kinds of wrong, but to my suite it is. Thirteenth floor. Don't keep me waiting."
  • Persona 4 has the Crossdressing Beauty Pageant. Crossdressing Kanji-Chan comes onto the stage. Two girls talk about how creepy it looks, and one boy invokes the trope:
    Boy's Voice: This is wrong on every level...
  • Chapter 102 of Princess Connect Redive's in-game 4Koma has Hiyori flying Djeeta as a human kite (it makes a certain amount of sense in context). As she flies through the air, Djeeta thinks (emphasis theirs):
    This is wrong... It's all wrong... But it's actually pretty fun...!

    Webcomics 

    Web Originals 

    Web Videos 
  • In Atop the Fourth Wall, Linkara reviews the Kool-Aid Man comic, and a caption says the phrase of this trope in reference to a girl kissing the Kool-Aid Man.
  • The video "Don't Watch An Anime Called Boku - Typography" warns us: "Don't watch an anime called Boku! Man, this shit is so wrong in so many motherfucking levels, yo..."
  • In Dragon Ball Z Abridged, we get introduced to Trunks during the Android/Cell saga. Bulma's response to meeting him is to almost immediately start hitting on him, unaware that he's her Kid from the Future that hasn't been born or even conceived at that point. Her pickup line provokes some perfectly understandable internal screams of horror and disgust from Trunks. Bulma is also squicked out when the truth finally catches up to her years later.
    Bulma: Hey, I'm just gonna throw this out there, but you're really cute.
    Trunks: Well you know, my mother always said I was a cute kid...
    Bulma: Oh, a momma's boy, huh? I'll be your mommy. [winks suggestively]
    [Future Trunks forces himself to hold a strained smile while screaming internally]

    [later]
    Bulma: ...Oh my God, I solicited my son for sex.
  • The Nostalgia Critic:
    • The Critic comments during his review of Milk Money that the film is "a five-star restaurant menu of wrong".
    • On The Star Wars Holiday Special, specifically the segment of the Holographic "Wow": "This is wrong... This is a holocaust of wrong."

    Western Animation 
  • In the Ben 10: Ultimate Alien episode "Double or Nothing", Gwen has this reaction when she sees her stage show counterparts, the Gwenettes.
  • Becomes a Running Gag in one Danny Phantom episode in which the line is uttered whenever someone comes in dressed as Sam for their own reasons — respectively, Tucker and Grandma Ida. Wrong indeed.
  • In the Ed, Edd n Eddy episode "3 Squares and an Ed", Edd has this reaction when he sees that Ed's parents took down the basement stairs to keep him grounded.
    Edd: That's... disturbing.
  • In one episode of Family Guy, Peter makes a long analogy involving Woody Allen with a "Chinaman". Lois gently informs him to "Hold on to that thought, because I'm gonna explain to you when we get home all the things that are wrong with that statement."
  • Once uttered by Grim in The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, in response to one of Billy's many grievous errors in common sense.
  • In the Invader Zim episode "Backseat Drivers from Beyond the Stars", this is Dib's reaction to Zim's attempt at trash talk.
    Zim: Go home and shave your giant head of smell with your bad self!
    Dib: [Beat] Okay, there's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said.
  • Kim Possible: Ron has "Sick and Wrong!" as a catchphrase. (Others use it too, but mostly him.) Beyond that is "Wrongsick!". For an example (not from Ron) in the episode "Bad Boy", when Ron becomes evil and Drakken becomes nice:
    Shego: This is Sick and Wrong on so many levels!
  • Phineas and Ferb:
    • In "Journey to the Center of Candace", Phineas and Ferb have shrunk themselves and a submarine to get inside Isabella's chihuahua Pinky, but things don't quite go exactly as planned....
      Phineas: Yeah, we're inside Candace's stomach.
      Ferb: That's creepy on so many levels.
      Phineas: Candace is on her date with Jeremy. That means we're on a date with Jeremy.
      Ferb: Again, creepy on so many levels.
    • Candace has this reaction to her brothers attempting to hatch an egg with a robotic platypus butt in "Perry Lays an Egg":
      Candace: That's so wrong in so many ways, I don't even know where to start.
  • Robot Chicken: In the first Star Wars special, one very short clip towards the end has Luke and Leia in bed. The single line sums it up:
    Leia: That was so wrong...
  • Robotomy: "No Child Left Benign": After Blastus vomits up the books he stuffs in his mouth and eats his own puke, Thrasher says "Well, this is all kinds of wrong."
  • Time Squad: "The Prime Minster Has No Clothes": Buck Tuddrussel's response to Larry going swimming with a naked Winston Churchill is that it "just ain't right".
    Tuddrussel: A three-hundred-pound man skinny-dippin' with a robot... that just ain't right.
    Otto: I gotta wash my eyes!
  • The Venture Bros.:
    • This is the Pirate's response to walking in on Sally Impossible while she's naked, with her resulting Freak Out resulting in her skin turning invisible and the Pirate getting a good full-body glimpse of her muscles and organs.
    • Also cited by Dr. Mrs. The Monarch with respect to the Monarch's obsession with his new "Butterglider": "...They don't even have a name for what this is!"

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A Strong First Impression

Not long after the news of the moon being somehow blasted into a permanent crescent, a strange creature comes into a classroom and claims responsibility, before saying that it's going to be their new teacher. The class' reaction? "There are so many things wrong with this picture."

Alternative Title(s): Wrong On So Many Levels

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A Strong First Impression

Not long after the news of the moon being somehow blasted into a permanent crescent, a strange creature comes into a classroom and claims responsibility, before saying that it's going to be their new teacher. The class' reaction? "There are so many things wrong with this picture."

How well does it match the trope?

4.96 (26 votes)

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Main / ThisIsWrongOnSoManyLevels

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